


Wayward Son

by Neebsandtatties



Series: Wayward Son [2]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Jack gets a new life, Jack learns to be a dad again, Jack learns to do manual labour for a change, Jack wants his revenge but will he take it?, Nisha is a boss of a mum, Other, Sexual Content, and a beard, and bitches forever about it, because it's a Jack and Nisha fic, but a dick hole one who likes to mortify his son in front of his friends, but it's mostly feely, father-son bonding, otp offspring
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 00:39:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6730234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neebsandtatties/pseuds/Neebsandtatties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After sixteen years, Jack gets a second chance at life. But the world is not how he remembers it. His empire is in ruins. His name is mud. His own son holds him up at gun point. Oh what is a handsome man to do?</p><p> *AU Based directly upon the work of Sanzosin*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wayward Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sanzonsin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Sanzonsin).



> As with most of my work, this is directly based upon the artwork, doodles, conversations, AUs and everything in between created by the fabulous [sanzosin](http://sanzosin.tumblr.com/). Thank you so much for letting me frolic about in your universe and borrow your characters. You're a star. I hope you like what I'm doing so far! 
> 
> Anyway, a lot of liberties lorewise were taken with this so I do apologise in advanced but I figured it's not the craziest thing anyone has ever written about for this fandom *squints at the tags*. I will try to draw everything together over the next few chapters I just didn't want an info dump in the first installment. I want you all as confused as Jack >:D

  
**“I’m coming home**  
**Tell the world I’m coming home**  
**Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday**  
**I know my kingdom awaits**  
**And they’ve forgiven my mistakes”**  
  
\- Skylar Grey "Coming Home, Part II"  


 

 

The first thing Jack became aware of was the extraordinary sensation of a tingling in his head, like something nasty crawling beneath his skull. It was a creeping, horrible feeling quite unlike anything he’d ever experienced. And an awful pain in his kneecaps that sunk deep into his bones. God did it hurt. His palms pressed hard against hard against floor, his breath disturbing the dust and grit. 

His breath?

No, that didn’t seem right. To have breath, you’d have to be alive. Wasn’t he supposed to be dead? At least that was what his memory told him, that he had died somehow. Dead men had no reason to breathe, and yet he felt a complete sense of dislocation, like he was alive in the wrong time.

What in the hell was going on?

Jack’s eyelids prised open – which was more effort than it should have been – and looked up. The world was blurry around him; hazy squares and other assorted shapes of dull colour that bled into each other. He blinked again, and his vision became a little clearer. 

His surroundings were unfamiliar. He was in an old lab of some kind; an old lab with outdated equipment and barely functioning computer systems. The lights flickered fainting overhead, like a dying breath – not like Jack’s own breath that was loud, halting gasps.

He tested his fingers, his limbs. His fingers twitched against the dusty metal floor when he commanded them to, and his limbs moved when he wanted. Everything functioned, just as it always did. He felt a puzzling, strange rush of delight from the sensation that his body was under his complete control.

But hadn’t it always been? Something in his mind niggled that it had not.

That thought could just fuck right off.

The rest of Jack’s senses slowly shifted back into alignment. He swallowed and tasted the stale, almost sour air. He sniffed, and smelt stagnant water. And somewhere overhead, he heard the garbled message of an automated computer.  “ _The Hyperion corporation wishes to clarify that the bright light you saw after death was our digistruct technology, and-.”_ Jack strained to hear the rest, but it was impossible over the ringing in his eardrums – like someone had just crashed two metal mallets above his head. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to stand, much less move.

But damn it he had to try.

Slowly, carefully, he managed to draw himself onto his aching knees. More dust rose in great, almost angry puffs, as if he were disturbing a space that he shouldn’t. He realised then that he was sitting on a New-U platform, an old, outdated New-U platform that had peelings of Hyperion colours on the grating.

Jack looked around the lab again, his vision finally clear but his mind murky. Damn, why couldn’t he remember how’d he gotten there?He remembered clearly everything that had happened on the Moon, the asshole bandits and the Vault scar. He remembered taking over Hyperion and doing a bang up job of fixing Pandora. 

He also remembered little things like sliding his fingers through his girlfriend’s feather soft hair and the smell of his coffee machine. He remembered that his daughter had been murdered, but couldn’t remember exactly who had told him or if it was even true.

But judging from the way his gut clenched and his throat closed to a pinpoint, it was definitely true.

The rest of his memories were disjointed, and didn’t feel like his. Even his name felt unreal. He had images of people he didn’t know, but they felt familiar. A runty kid with one brown eye and a blue…A girl with a cute hat and teal painted fingernails…some sad nerd in a pair of glasses. Who were they? Why did he remember their faces so well? And why did they conjure a sense of deep rage and betrayal. 

But he remembered the darkness the most – the terrifying, over-mastering darkness that threatened to swallow him up; shadowy fingers that grasped at his jacket, his shirt and pulled him in. A dank chill broke out over his forehead and Jack reached up to wipe the sweat away. He didn’t want to think about that. He wanted to think about how to get out of this rundown old lab.

Jack tried to speak, and was slightly horrified to hear that his voice was little better than the croak of a frog.

He cleared his throat, and tried again. “H-Hello? Anyone there?” That was more like his old self, if albeit a little shaky.

Silence stretched out. He didn’t hear anything; no footsteps of staff members or even the cackle of some psycho asshole bandit. It was an uneasy silence, and it prompted Jack to move. He suddenly didn’t want to be on the ground anymore.

He untucked a leg then slid it forward, bracing his foot on the platform then heaved himself up onto stiff, unsteady legs. His knees buckled a moment, but they held and Jack managed to straighten himself up.

“Jesus, we’ve really let this place go,” Jack commented to himself as he patted the dust from the knees of his jeans. “Gonna kill whoever is in charge, if they're still alive."

He looked around the lab again. The lab was dim, and most of the equipment and computers were either offline or smashed. Shells of spent bullets scattered across the floor like yellow teeth.

Nearby however, there was the faint glow of a very grimy computer screen – a computer system that still had power it seemed. Jack approached and wiped the dirt and dust away with his palm.

He peered at the screen, and nearly did a double take.

The date suggested he had been “dead” for nearly sixteen years. “No, no that can’t be right,” he said to himself, trying to shake the thoughts right out of his head and onto the floor. “Computer is just fucked that’s all.”

At the bottom of the screen, the message indication flashed. He tapped the inbox icon and an envelope flashed up, stamped with an ‘H’ and a line of text behind. “’Play me?’. Huh. Oh well, in for a penny,” Jack said with a shrug. No harm ever came from opening ECHO mail he supposed.

An image of his digital self suddenly appeared on the screen, looking very pleased with himself. Jack had to admit, he looked good as a hologram, even as a pile of pixels and programming. _“Hey hero, it’s yourself. If you’re hearing this, then our – well my plan really – frigging worked, so right on, go us.”_ His digital-self raised his palm. “ _Gimmie me a high five man!”_

Jack didn’t hesitate to reach over and press his hand against the screen. He couldn’t leave a brother hanging. That was just bang out of order.

After a few seconds, his digital counterpart lowered his hand. _“If you high fived me, right on! If you didn’t, do me a solid and go and kill yourself now because you’ve come out wrong.”_ Digi-Jack laughed to himself like he was fucking hilarious. Which he was. “ _Anyway, bet you’re wondering what the hell happened? If it worked then you probably should know all of this anyway. Just in case I’ll clue you in. Well, remember how we were stuck with that spaz Rhys? About yay-tall?”_ His digital self made an indication of height. _“Looks like some sad little groupie? With the sorta face ya just wanna slap? Ringing a bell?”_

Jack concurred. He remembered Rhys…at least fragments of memories. He was the kid with the heterochromatic eyes as well. But the memories didn’t feel right. Like his name, he couldn’t even be sure that they were his. And it pissed him off. He wasn’t used to being so unsure for so long.

Digi-Jack continued with his tale. “ _Anyway I wasn’t down with that. So while I was all snuggled into Hyperion’s systems, I found an old NewU lab on Pandora that wasn’t on the map. It was a little old, but it seemed in-tact…for the most part. So I sent that last scan of your brain patterns we had down to it and asked it to make us a new a body, along with a copy of my handsome brain patterns  then Bam! Science motherfucker. It’s just as it was before we were killed, eight inch dick and all.”_ Digi-Jack pulled a face. “ _Couldn’t fix our face though, ya know, the scar but I managed to alter our DNA enough that your eye should work a little better now without the mask. How friggin’ clever are we?”_

 _“_ So clever it’s practically criminal,” Jack agreed to himself.

Digi-Jack clapped his hands together, looking every bit the determined man that Jack himself was. “ _Now we get a second shot at nailing those bastard Vault Hunters and every jackhole who’s screwed us over. We gotta do this man, for us. And for Angel.”_ His digital self then saluted him. “ _Godspeed Jack. If this works, we’ll get our life back. If it doesn’t, then we’re pretty screwed cos I’ve only got one shot at this. ”_ His digital self seemed to hesitate a moment. _“But it’s worth the risk. I don’t wanna be stuck like this. So, see you on the other side.”_

The message clicked off, and there was a silence again as Jack tried to process everything he had just heard. He was alive? New-U technology was buggy at best, and more often than not, people came back missing internal organs and died within minutes. Was this just one elaborate hoax by God? 

Jack curled his hand into a fist, and before he could hesitate, rammed it hard and deep into his own gut. The wind was knocked right from him, causing his breath to stutter out with a gasp. But there was a familiar sense of dull pain – real, glorious pain. No dream could stimulate that so well.

And in that abandoned Hyperion laboratory, Handsome Jack realised with unbridled elation that he was truly alive.

He was _alive._

_He was alive._

An ecstatic laugh bubbled up out of him, despite the pain in his stomach. “Fucking A! I’m back baby!” He laughed again, reaching his hands to feel himself just to make sure. He felt the heat beneath radiating through the fabric of his clothes, real warmth. He was aware of the sensation of the polyester and denim beneath his fingers. He’d never appreciated his clothing more.

Jack dropped his hands away. His eyes gleamed with feverish determination as the reality of his situation sunk in. He was alive again. “Look out assholes, Jack is back,” he said, his voice buzzing with excitement.

Now all he had to do was get back to Helios. He could only imagine what those idiots had done in his absence. He’d have to find Nisha as well, show off his fantastic new body. He couldn’t wait to show her.

Nisha.

He had to find her, had to reassemble his army of course, but he had to find her before that. She had to be still alive. He didn't seem to have any memories to suggest otherwise. 

Question was, how was he going to get out? There would definitely be at least one emergency exit elevator in the bunker, but he still had to find it.

Jack glanced around the abandoned lab again. There was an exit sign above a door nearby, but a tipped filing cabinet blocked the way. He walked over – stepping carefully around pools of bright, discoloured purple liquid and shards of broken glass. He pushed his shoulder against the cabinet and shifted it, kicking up dust and other crap. His nose tickled, and Jack sneezed twice, and the sound echoed. Just as well there was no one around to hear him. Nisha had said once he sounded like a sick skag when he sneezed. He hoped she was just being rude.

The door double had attempted to perform an emergency lock and thankfully for him, had failed for the most part. There was enough of a gap that he could wiggle his hands through and with enough force, he would do a manual override. He pulled against the door, and it groaned in protest. “Come on…you bitch,” Jack grunted through clenched teeth. He pushed his weight into the heave, bracing his foot hard against the grimy floor.

The door resisted for only a moment more, before it finally opened with a disgruntled hiss. Jack stepped through gingerly.

Ahead of him was corridor, darkened by the shattered lights on ceiling. Overhead, there was a fizzle of sound coming from the old automated audio system.

He crept through cautiously, noting evidence of a firefight. More bullets scattered the floor, and there were long since decayed skeletons that were months dead, if not years. They were both Hyperion and bandit corpses, judging from the battered armour and shredded clothes. The rats must have had a field day in this particular lab.  “Ugh, gross,” Jack said with a wrinkled nose.

But at least they hadn’t eaten the guns. Jack leaned down and tugged a stand issued Hyperion assault rifle from the fingers of the closest skeleton. The bones rattled to the ground as they fell apart, as the rifle was the only thing that was holding the frame together. Jack felt the as his own bones were rattling.  “Hey, pull yourself together bud,” he joked, trying to mask his anxiety with shitty joke. It had always worked before.

Only this time it didn’t stop the slight crack in his voice.

He worked up the corridor, piecing together what had happened to this particular station. He theorised that some asshole bandits must have tried to take the place, and his Hyperion employees put up a half decent fight. He would have given them all a raise, they had not been musty old skeletons on the floor.

At the end of the darkened hallway, there was an old elevator. Jack approached, hopeful that there was still power going to it. His luck held out. He pressed the call button with a thumb.  The doors opened with a ping, and three skeletons were slouched against the wall like a couple of canvas sacks. Jack slipped inside, not feeling brave enough to check their pockets or packs for ammo.

Instead he pressed the button to was marked with ‘surface’. “Going up?” he asked his fellow lift goers.  They didn’t answer and Jack snorted to himself.

No sense of humour the dead.

 

* * *

 

 

Jack had never been happier to see the surface of Pandora; even the dusty, fractious, hot surface of Pandora. The elevator had taken up him two levels and went no further. An emergency staircase had taken him up the rest of the way. By the time Jack had reached the surface, he was grubby, grumpy and thoroughly fed up. The knees of his jeans were grubby, and the white cuffs of his sleeves looked as grey as the streak that ran through his hair.

He hoisted himself out of the manhole, shuffled back, then let the cover slam shut again. He sat breathing amongst the heat scorched grass and it almost felt wonderful to have fresh(ish) air filling up his lungs. God what a tragic place that old lab was. He’d make sure to send a demolition crew down to destroy it. “Now to get back to Helios that should…be”

His voice trailed off as he realised that something was very wrong with Pandora’s skyline. “…right…there.”

The ‘H’ shaped space station in the sky was absent.

“Uh.” Jack stood staring, pondering in the sun and forgetting entirely that he was on an extremely hostile planet. “Well that isn’t good. Did its obit decay or something? Nah, couldn’t have. She’s good for at least another hundred years,” Jack reasoned as he ran a head through his hair, trying to stop the panic bucking high in his chest. He shook as much from the effects of the digital reconstruction and the horrible, sinking feeling that something had happened to Helios.

And the thought hit him harder than any siren ever could.

“Easy Jack, easy. It’s probably nothing. It’s maybe just out of the atmosphere or something. It ain’t like there’s anything on Pandora that could shoot it down,” he told himself sternly, trying to clamp it all back

First things first, he had to find Nisha. He _had_ to find her now. She’d be able to give him a lay of the land. So now he had to find both his girlfriend and his space station.

Jack scowled under the hot Pandora sun. What a fabulous start to a new life. He had to think what could make it worse. Possibly nothing. In fact, the only thing that could make it worse is it his dick was actually an inch shorter than it should have been.

And if that were the case, he’d blow his brains out right then and there.

“Reach for the skies asshole,” said a voice behind him suddenly, so suddenly he didn’t even have a chance to unsling his rifle.

Jack cursed. He had been so busy puzzling over the absence of Helios and the possibility that his dick was shorter than he did not hear the crack of sun scorched twigs on the ground. “Oh Goddamn it, what now?” he growled through clenched teeth. The day just kept getting better and better.

He turned on his heel. Twenty paces behind him was a young man with an old Jakob’s sniper rifle levelled at Jack’s head. He had a shrewd, clever face with defined features, and his build suggested he wasn’t any older than twenty. His complexion was tanned but not dark, indicating that either the kid had mixed heritage or he hadn’t heard of sunblock. Wedged on top of his shiny black hair was an old, weathered cowboy hat. The rest of his outfit was just as tragic. He looked every bit the cowboy – from the hat to the lasso hitched to his belt to the pair of old revolvers at his hips to the boots to the copper spurs fixed to the heels of his boots.

 What a complete tool. Jack would have laughed his socks off if the barrel of a Jakob’s sniper rifle wasn’t aimed at his head.

“Put your hands where I can see em, or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” threatened the cowboy. He definitely sounded like he meant it. And if his tone wasn’t convincing enough, Jack heard the click of the safety catch over rustling of the wind through the dry trees.

“Alright alright. Jesus, keep your hat on,” Jack retorted, raising his hands. Not like he had much choice. He’d just gotten his body back. “See, I haven’t got anything on me. So let's just be chill about this yeah?”

The kid surveyed him with a curious yet guarded expression, much like a stray dog who’d been kicked one too many times. “Who are you? What are you doin’ around these parts stranger?” the cowboy asked, not lowering his rifle. “You ain’t supposed to be here.”

That was a first. He hadn’t met anyone who hadn’t known his face in a very long time. His face was a big deal. “You’re seriously asking me that? I’m Handsome Jack kid!” He jabbed a thumb to his face. “Don’t you recognise this handsome mug?”

Gilded eyes widened slightly, as if slightly taken back by the answer then narrowed again into a look of doubt. “Yeah, right. You’re Handsome Jack. Says you and every other psycho bandit that wanders in here,” replied the young cowboy skeptically.

It was not at all the reaction Jack had expected. “Hey, I’m the only Handsome Jack worth talking about,” he insisted. “I dunno which jackhole is pretending to be me, but I’m the real deal,” he sniped back, feeling particularly nettled that someone was using _his_ name. Fuck that guy, whoever he was.

“ _Sure_ you are.” The kid then rolled his eyes, as if he didn’t believe a word Jack had said. “Seriously you dumbass bandits need some new material. The joke is getting a little old now.”

Jack felt the Indignation boil up in him. “Hey, if you want a good joke then take a look in the mirror.”

The kid chuckled but didn’t lower his rifle. “Funny. So what are you doing here?” asked the cowboy, shifting his weight.

“Like it's any of your business," Jack replied glibly.

"You'll find it is." The kid's finger found the trigger of the sniper rifle and Jack felt a bead of sweat drip down his forehead and settle into his mask. "Ain't much out here."

He cast a glance around their immediate surroundings. "Yeah, I've gathered that. So, you mind doing me a favour? Get lost."

“Here’s what we’re gonna do, _Handsome Jack_ ,” said the kid, drawling out his name with clear mockery. You’re gonna come with me, nice and quietly alright? You can explain to my mom what exactly you're doing wearing Handsome Jack's face and maybe if she's in a good mood, you'll leave with both your hands.”

Jack’s brow quirked. “Is that so? You think you’ve got the adult sized stones to make me?” he retorted.

Gold eyes glinted at him and Jack couldn’t think where he had seen that look before. It was annoyingly, frustratingly familiar. “You’ll see all about my adult sized stones when I’m pissing on your grave,” he replied without missing a beat.

Despite himself, Jack still smirked.

He had to admit it. The kid had the sort of wit that he appreciated; the quick, rude, flippant kind.

And just for that, Jack would humour him. For a while at least, until he could figure out what the fuck was going on. Or until he had a chance to choke the kid to death with his own lasso. Either way, he could handle a bandit brat and his mother easily. “Not bad kid, not bad at all. Alright, ya got me,” Jack said, holding out his hands. “Consider me cowed.”

Keeping the stock of his rifle propped against his shoulder, the kid reached a hand back and fumbled with one of his belt pockets. A pair of handcuffs flashed into view, shiny under the bright Pandora sun. “Don’t do anythin’ stupid now,” he said, as if he had a scope that could see into Jack’s thoughts.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jack answered acerbically as the kid snapped the handcuffs into place, then tested their hold by tugging on his wrist. He supressed a snort. It would take more than a pair of handcuffs to stop Handsome freaking Jack.

The kid took the rifle from him as well, and swung it over his shoulder. “Won’t be needing that anymore. Let’s go. My technical is this way,” the youth said, giving him a push forward.

Jack glanced over his shoulder at the young man. “What? Not even going to feel me up for any other concealed weapons?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Pffft, no.”

“Then don’t ask.” The kid cracked another half-smile. The gesture seemed difficult somehow, as if he didn’t smile very often. “And besides, you don’t look like you’re packin’. Ya look like you belong in an office somewhere, not on Pandora.”

The cowboy wasn’t entirely wrong. Yet all the same, Jack frowned offputtingly. “Oh you’ve got no room to talk. You look like some wannabe cowboy knock off,” he replied with a sniff, momentarily forgetting their roles of captor and captive.

“Least I ain’t the one wearin’ sneakers on Pandora. Skag slag will melt those right off in a second,” the kid said with a snort.

“Stop knocking my dress sense.”

“Then stop flapping your gums and walk,” said the kid, but there was little rancour in his voice. Jack supposed he didn’t need it. Not with a high calibre rifle in his hands, and a set of chambered pistols on his hips.

The distance to the cowboy’s technical was not far, yet it seemed to take forever. God he’d forgotten how horribly hot Pandora could be. Even with the brush of wind through his hair – making him look stormed tossed and interesting he hoped – Jack still felt unbearably warm. The fabric of his Hyperion jumper stuck to his back under all his layers. He was not equipped for such weather. Give him cold, dark space any day. “So what’s your name kid?”

The kid hesitated, his expression serious and guarded again. There was almost a look of mild panic in his eyes, as if he were afraid of the reaction he would get. “…It’s Jake,” he finally replied, not offering up a second name and Jack didn’t care to ask. He’d probably be dead before the end of the day.

“Well Jake, are we there yet?” Jack asked, trying his best not to trip on the sun cracked terrain. He felt the sharp rocks prodding through the soles of his trainers. In the offices and corridors of Helios, his shoes were lightweight and bouncy. And they were generally good for throwing at people who pissed him off. On Pandora, they were impractical and made his feet sweat uncomfortably.

“Yeah, almost,” replied Jake.

They rounded behind a large formation of dusty rock and sure enough, there was a Technical parked out of the way of the sun. The Technical was old, but still very clearly loved. It had a standard frame, rusted in places and shiny in the others. There was evidence of dents in the body that had been painstakingly hammered out. A star spangled pattern of black and yellow stars were sprayed on the bonnet and doors. A large mini-gun of Hyperion design was mounted on the hull, and a pintle turret on the back.

“Is that your ride?” Jack asked, knowing full well that it was.

“Yeah?”

He glanced at the vehicle again, and cracked another smile. “It looks like a bullymong barfed on it.”

“Thanks,” Jake replied dryly as he prodded him along towards the old technical with the nose of his sniper rifle. He needn’t have bothered. Jack felt too sweaty and exhausted still from his resurrection to do really much of anything – other than make witty comments.

 “I hope no one I know sees me in this piece of shit car,” Jack remarked as they approached the vehicle. “I’ll look so uncool.”

“Yeah cos that would be a real fucking tragedy,” the kid countered, fiddling with the passenger’s door. He hauled it open. Jack peered into the Technical. It was surprisingly clean, but just a little old. Splits and cracks on the surface of the leather seats had been sewn back together. “Do you have a paper bag I can wear on my head?”

“Shut up and right get in,” said Jake.

“You take guys home often huh?” Jack retorted with a whip of a smirk as he climbed into the technical. It smelt old with a faint, tangy chemical scent of petrol. It was not as unpleasant as the Hyperion lab he had awoken to.

“Only the old ones,” replied Jake.

The comment prickled him. “Wow rude,” Jack retorted as the cowboy slammed the door shut again. But the kid didn’t hear him. What a pity.

The driver’s door opened and Jake slid in, tossing his sniper rifle into the back seat. Something about the entire situation felt too familiar. If it wasn’t for the hand cuffs slapped to his wrists, he could have almost forgot that he was indeed a captive. Maybe this Jake guy didn’t view him a threat?

That would cost him. Jack tested his cuffs. That would definitely cost him. “Does this piece of shit car even go?” he asked, feeling annoyed that he couldn’t even reach up and wipe his brow properly. Even parked in the shade, the technical was still stifling hot. He threw a scowl at the driver. Why didn’t he have air conditioning?

Jake – seemingly oblivious to the heat of his Technical – revved the engine and the technical rattled to life with an almost unhappy growl. “Yeah it gets me from A to B well enough,” he replied as he inched the vehicle forward into a slow crawl towards the main road of…wherever they were. Gravel crunched outside of the window, kicking up dust and dirt that itched at the back of Jack’s throat and nose.

The kid then shunted the gearstick to the side and Jack heard the sound of the engine revving again as Jake applied more of the gas pedal. The technical lurched forward with a sudden burst of speed – as if it had just been kicked in the backside and swung out onto the patchy remains of a main road. Jake shifted gears again, and the Technical gained more speed.

“So where are we going anyway?”

“Like I said, I’m taking you to my mom," he answered vaguely. "This is her territory. She’ll decide what to do with you,” Jake replied

“Mommy’s boy,” Jack commented with a sneer.

Jake didn’t even more looking at him. How rude. He could have at least looked at the man who had just insulted him. “Just wait until you meet my mom. Ya don’t wanna cross her. You’d better hope she’s in a good mood, or you’ll be swinging from the trees.”

“Hehe, your mom sounds hot,” Jack retorted, flexing his fingers. Maybe it wasn’t too late to strangle the kid with the pin of the handcuffs and steal his rifle.

That got his attention. Jake took his eyes off the road to throw him a dark look. “You want a knee capping?”

“Not really no. I kinda like my knees,” Jack responded. And they were new as well. Just as knobbly as they were before. He should have thought to reprogram his DNA a little.

“Then shut your mouth.”

Jack wanted to do the opposite. But something about the dark expression the cowboy wore made him think better of it. “Alright, Jesus. God learn to take a joke,”

His captor took a corner a little too hard and Jack was thrown against the passenger door unexpectedbly. His shoulder crunched in its socket painfully, and his elbow battered against the frame.

“Hey watch it!” Jack scowled. He was 90% certain the kid did it on purpose.

“Sorry.” Something about Jake’s tone suggested he wasn’t the least bit sorry at all.

“Bet you did that on purpose,”

The kid snorted, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “I ain’t going to waste effort on a soon-to-be dead man,” he replied.

“Who the hell taught you to drive?” Jack grumped. His shoulder thumped from the impact and he was certain he felt it bruising by the minute.

“My mom.”

“Figures.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means whatever the hell you want it to mean.”

Jake cast another glance at him. “You’re really mouthy for someone who will probably get shot in the head later if my mom is in a bad mood.”

Jack cracked another smile. The kid would be dead before that happened. “It’s my special talent. That, and my eight inch dick,” Jack replied smoothly.

“Yeah, right.”

“Jealous?”

“No need to be. Got my own.”

The kid seemed to have a smart-ass reply for just about everything. Jack wasn’t sure if it annoyed or amused him. Maybe a bit of both. It would be a real shame to kill him.

 

 

The trip to Jake’s stronghold took little time at all, but the evening was drawing close. The sun was beginning to sink into the landscape, casting Pandora into a hue of pinks and oranges. The temperature had dropped to a comfortable 16 degrees Celsius. Jack thought of his city, Opportunity. The view above the city in his penthouse must have looked great. He inhaled, and could almost taste the colours on his tongue. Last time he had seen in a sunset on Pandora, he and Nisha had been drinking golden champagne from flutes – complete with strawberries floating on the surface. Later when the sky was navy and inky, he had eaten the rest of the strawberries from upon Nisha’s belly. Happy times all around. That was a good memory that felt real in his heart and head. 

They rolled up a long, gravel driveway to Jake’s outpost – if it could even truly be called an outpost.. It looked little better than old cattle ranch.

Jack peered out of the dusty window. It was an old cattle ranch - A ranch without any animals, other than a runty Skag snoozing in the evening sun. A thicket of trees encircled the back of the ranch house, and a couple of fenced paddocks encircled the front. The gravel driveway ran up between two paddocks to the ranch house. It looked completely normal by Pandora standards and not at all what he expected, given how the kid described his mother. Jack expected a heavily defended bandit outpost with heavy defences. Other than a couple of turrets near the empty paddocks, the defences were minimal. He was puzzled by the simplicity of it.

“This is where you live?” Jack asked with a raised eyebrow, not bothering in the slightest to hide his scepticism.

“Yeah. It ain’t much but it’s home,” replied the kid with a hint of fondness in his voice as the technical trundled up the patchy driveway. The Skag sleeping on the porch stirred as they approached, as if it had been listening for the mechanical growling of the engine. It rose its head abruptly and let out a howl. Jack was certain that it was a howl of delight.

“So, a ranch house and a runty skag. There was me thinking I you’d be taking me to some asshole bandit camp where I’d actually have to work to escape from,” Jack commented.

“Count youself lucky I found you and not someone else who likes nice teeth on their necklaces. Maybe you'll actually get a chance to live,” Jake replied, killing the engine of the technical. He pushed the passenger door open and had no sooner shut it before the Skag had bounded up to him in a flurry of leathery skin and glossy, oil black armour plates. That kid was going to get his head bitten off. It would serve him right.

Instead, something much worse happened.

Jack watched with recoiling horror as the cowboy let the Skag smother him with slobbery licks. He imagined what that smelt like – dank dirt and decay and rotting worms. Saliva dripped down from the Skag’s open jaws in thick, gooey ropes and dangled above the dirt.

Yet Jake acted as if he had just been greeted by a friendly old dog. “Hey girl, you miss me?” he asked rubbing his hand beneath the stringy, rough neck of the Skag. It made a happy, whining sound that Jack didn’t think Skags were even capable of. “I wasn’t gone long ya know.”

Clearing his throat, Jack leaned out of the open passenger as best as he could. “I hate to interrupt your loving reunion with your girlfriend, but if you could just, you know, let me out, that would be just _great_.”

Jake pushed the Skag down. “Yeah, alright, hold your horses,”

“That you Jake?”

Jack froze suddenly and his world seemed shrink inwards.

“Yeah I’m back! And look what I bought, some asshole bandit sayin’ he’s Handsome Jack,” said the kid, grasping him by his wrists and hauling him out of the technical none too gently. Jack didn't care. His legs weren't working anyway. He was too busy straining his ears, listening for that all too familiar darkened whiskey voice.

And just when he thought he had imagined it, he heard the voice again. “Don’t bring em home Jake. You know that puts me in a bad mood."

He knew that voice.

He knew that voice as well as he knew his own damn name.

The owner appeared from behind the ranch house, the heels of her boots scraping on the broken chips and gravel. The footsteps suddenly stopped abruptly, just as Jack’s heart did.

There was Nisha Kadam; his lover, his friend, his Lawbringer, his trusted Vault hunter. She looked just as gorgeous as he remembered even in a check shirt, faded gilet and leather pants. Her raven black hair had been cut short again, but it was still longer than it had been when they first met on Helios. Her lips were still a glossy purple, still very lovely and very kissable. He bet that if he stripped her down, her favourite scars would still be there. Every part of her was familiar, yet there was a difference in her that he liked immediately.

But for a second, Jack didn’t believe it was her. Nisha didn’t look a day over thirty, as opposed to the forty four year old that she should have been. Maybe the computer really had just been wrong? Or maybe he was.

“Nisha,” he said, and his voice sounded distant to his own ears. Suddenly he forgot all about the cuffs on his wrists and the rifle at his back and the Skag ready to snap at his heels. All he could focus on was the appearance of his girlfriend and the overwhelming feeling of relief in his chest.

She looked at him, her mouth parted slightly in shock and eyes blown wide. She looked at him as if he were a small miracle, like she could not quite believe what she was seeing. “Jack.” Her own voice trembled on the syllable of his name. He had never heard her say his name like that – so desperate and raw at the same time.

God was it really her?

The setting sun caught in Nisha’s eyes, just as it might have in some ridiculously romance novel. It confirmed what he already knew. That was definitely her. He didn’t know any other person alive with eyes the colour of polished gold. He didn’t know anyone else whose eyes had a depth of colour that took his breath away.

For the first time that day, he felt safe.

 


End file.
